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All articles tagged Josh Lurie

Digital Works III took place before the PM Society Digital Awards 2015.

A collection of amazing speakers from WebMD, BMS, Search Unlimited, GSK, Boehringer Ingelheim, Veeva, NHS Choices, & M3. These speakers highlighted programmes and initiatives in digital healthcare that have worked as well as fascinating insight and thinking.

April 27th, The Brewery, London

Reporter – Anjani Patel, Account Manager, emotive

The third Digital Works Meeting brought together nine experts from industry and the NHS who had something to say about “how digital works”. While their perspectives differed, they all agreed that keeping patients and customer experience at the centre is the key to creating programmes and tools that add maximum value.

Rob Huxford – GSK

“The key to success is onboarding the patient associations, which is critical for rare diseases”

The workshop kicked off with Rob Huxford describing how GSK has developed an effective mobile health solution for the rare disease, Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (PAH). The GSK team recognised from the start that a collaboration with healthcare professionals and other industry organisations was key in rare disease management and therefore started by conducting an analysis of the current situation with the help and support of the relevant patient associations and Manchester University. This research showed that the traditional forms of patient support were being catered for very well but highlighted a disconnect between the patient and HCP through the management of the condition away from the clinic.

To fill the gap, GSK developed MyPAH, an app aiming to put the control back in patients’ hands, allowing them to track their everyday experiences and facilitate discussions with their HCPs. This app was developed to empower patients to confidently manage their condition away from the clinical setting. Although it’s still in the pilot phase, it is the first step in meeting the needs of patients in this rare disease.

Albert Reyes – WebMD

EU HCP mobile usage of 92% is 10 points higher than in the US. 52% of doctors are reading up on their phone between patients. #digitalworks

Albert Reyes from WebMD flew in from the U.S. to provide an insight into how third party platforms such as WebMD allow us to better understand the online behaviour of the physician. With 91% of all physicians using smart phones for professional use, it is now even more important that we understand who, where, why, when and what they want. The key is to ensure that the content is in the right context for meaningful engagement.

Reyes shared some useful data such as only 32% of European doctors allowing reps access and 46% using search engines to assist with prescribing decisions. Reyes then shared with us how a global cardiologist uses platforms such as Medscape to catch up on articles tailored to his or her interest and gave details of Medscape’s highly rated apps. The articles featured are representative of the actual audience insights over the previous 90 days, therefore the content is both relevant and up to date.

“Content is king. Context is queen”

David Brooks – BMS, and Matt Lowe – Search Unlimited

David Brooks (BMS) and Matt Lowe (Search Unlimited) provided an overview of audience behaviour, SEO and digital PR in healthcare. Mobile health enquiries account for 18% of all search traffic and therefore search engine optimization is crucial in ensuring the visibility of all your online communication. “Customer experience” should always be the starting point therefore David and his team carried out a digital landscaping exercise that helped them gain insight into the behaviour of their specific UK audience to scope out a set of end goals. It was fundamental to interrogate HCP behaviour online with a focus on what they want – not what BMS wants to tell them.

This landscaping exercise helped to define a keyword strategy and ensured the most efficient architecture. The highly targeted approach also used the data found to continually improve the customer experience. The team has changed the way they approach online communication in healthcare for the better.

“Our biggest opportunity is the smallest moments”

Josh Lurie – Symplur

Josh Lurie told the audience about Symplur Signals, a platform that tracks over a billion tweets to tell you exactly what doctors and patients are thinking. Symplur analyses Twitter feeds in real time to locate and identify the conversations that are happening by therapy area topic, making the voices of all healthcare stakeholders heard by the industry.

Tracking over a billion Tweets, to tell you exactly what doctors and patients are thinking”

The system maps influencers, shows who is talking about what, from patients to companies and reveals those pharma companies that are truly engaging with their many audiences via social media. This latter information was used to select the finalists and winner of the Social Media Pharma Company of the Year Award, presented at the PM Society Digital Awards on the same day.

Following the break, Christian Hansen (B.I.) and Chris Wade (Veeva) shared with us their experience of how mobile technology is key to customer success. With mobile tech embedded in healthcare (over 96% of doctors use their mobiles to assist in their clinical work) it is critical to the delivery of better care. At B.I. the digital journey has gained momentum quickly with the field force moving to digital detailing, an iRep system and other technology solutions for engaging with customers.

The key is bridging the gap between face to face engagements and other digital interactions. Across the industry, 80% of reps now have iPads in comparison to 35% in 2011 so it is important to help the field force adopt and integrate these new platforms into their relationships with their customer base.

“Customers care about what matters to them – mobile tech is there to help bridge the gap between their needs and your goals“

Martin Moth – NHS Choices

Continuing the theme of apps and what the future holds, Martin Moth, Tools Lead for NHS Choices firstly confirmed that NHS.UK is a hugely popular website, boasting 2 million visits per day. 68% of those are from mobile so it’s no surprise that they are developing apps as well as web-based tools for users. The website’s BMI calculator was the most used with 3.5m users last year. The ‘depression and anxiety’ self-assessment tool had 1.6m uses in the same period, and the weight loss guide 1.9m. Some interesting data on the difference between mobile users and those using a desktop was given.

Moth also talked about the lessons learned from the Health Apps Library which was decommissioned in October 2015, re-emphasizing the need to promote apps in context to people in relevant places. Current activity centres on the National Information Board’s work to assess and approve healthcare apps, so that HCPs will be confident in recommending their use and patients will be confident to use them. It’s still a work in progress but it’s happening fast …to help the apps you develop reach the maximum audience.

“Uptake of apps doesn’t happen if you put them on a website and expect people to use them”

Dr James Quekett – M3 (EU)

Finally we heard from Dr James Quekett who helped us understand the value of social learning for doctors. He quoted the statistic that 93.9% of doctors think the internet has had a significant impact on clinical practice. Although different people use the same platform for different things, they all understand the value of online discussions.

Doctors may not use ‘open’ networks for patient based discussions but will still use them to stay up to date within their fields. They also have many other social media networks, therefore he suggested we look “outside the box” and into these professional networks for engagement opportunities. In all forms of communication the key learning is to listen…